Progress prevails

Describing the gruesome work she once did as a nurse involved with a late abortion, Nadine Dorries made a highly charged speech last night. The Conservative MP spearheading the campaign to reduce the abortion term limit enjoyed the support of her own party leader and other MPs on all sides of the House. But a clear majority rejected her pitch. They did not do so out of blindness to the ethical dilemmas involved in late terminations. Rather, they concluded that women facing a painful decision about whether to have an abortion at up to 24 weeks need no help from the law.

This judgment would not automatically change if foetal viability improved. But it is only reinforced by research published in the British Medical Journal which concludes that recent advances have brought "no improvement in survival rates" below 24 weeks. Still, viability is an important parameter of the debate, and continuing medical progress will ensure abortion remains a serious ethical issue.

The same cannot be said of the other big issue yesterday - the rights of lesbian couples who wish to have children. The rules governing assisted reproduction were set in 1990, when the age of consent for homosexual men was 21 and when the Thatcher government had recently written into statute that homosexuality was a "pretended family relationship". That is the context in which parliament insisted fertility clinics must take account of "the need ... for a father". Thankfully, times move on, which is why the government is replacing that requirement by recognising all supportive parenting - regardless of gender. In a free vote, MPs last night endorsed that - overcoming reactionary resistance. It came from all sides, but particularly the Conservative benches, where it won David Cameron's backing. He may live to regret blotting his previously commendable record on gay rights by backing a doomed attempt to retard social progress.

If the requirement for a father has any force, it denies treatment to lesbians who paid it insufficient attention. But its backers yesterday went out of their way to claim it would achieve nothing concrete. When one MP said Birmingham women's hospital currently restricted fertility treatment to heterosexuals, another - bent on retaining the fatherhood rule - rushed out to research it and then came back to the chamber claiming the same hospital was happy to treat lesbians. Whatever the truth, if the law has no effect, then what is the point in retaining it?

The aim was "sending a message". Some MPs were venting old-fashioned distaste. Sir Patrick Cormack, for example, said: "in Staffordshire, at least, it is considered normal for a child to have a father". It is hard to see who is helped by the unstated branding of children from non-traditional families as "abnormal". Others, however, were signalling something different. One explained that he was against "writing fathers out of the script". When fathers are spending more time with their children than ever before, this amounts to railing against an imaginary brand of political correctness. There was also the danger of setting back the long march against discrimination. The mainstream acceptance of gay relationships has been one of the most civilising features of the last generation. Particularly significant were changes in the law, which enabled gay people to acquire children through adoption and by forming a partnership. If that is acceptable, where is the logic in putting obstacles in the way lesbians seeking to have their own children?

A further perverse consequence, as pro-equality Tory John Bercow pointed out yesterday, would have been clinics telling gay women to "go to a pub and find yourself a man". That is absurd way to address the moral health of the nation. In the Commons last night, political incorrectness threatened to run wild. But on gay parenting the heartening outcome was that the progressives prevailed.